Assorted

ABC News has a profile of the robot behind the digitizing of the world's books.  My only question is, where can I get me one?  I don't want it to digitize, but it would be nice if it could turn the pages and blow air on them to keep them separated.  I am that lazy.

###

Our Pal The Rake visited My Brother's Bar, one of Denver's many prominent Beat landmarks, and lived to tell about it.

###

Dan Wickett talks to Emerging Writing Network members about their contributions to the latest issue of the Oxford American.

###

The Boston Globe uses the occasion of Harvard University Press' publication of an English translation of "On Hashish" to examine Walter Benjamin's drug use:

And yet, surprisingly, few writers have approached the experience of intoxication with Benjamin's earnestness, profound wonderment, and sense of purpose. Neither a recreational user nor an addict, he had a studious, deliberate, almost scholarly approach. In 1927, persuaded by some doctor friends to take part in their research, Benjamin began to dabble in a range of drugs-opium, hashish, mescaline-and recorded his experiences in a series of fragments and ``protocols": observations in Benjamin's hand alternating with the musings of his medical pals.

###

Ketchum, Idaho, is cashing in on Hemingway:

Everyone from merchandisers to hoteliers hawk $15,000 signed first editions of his books, offer $1,000-a-plate dinners in his home and hold a Hemingway festival during the traditionally slow fall season, transforming one of the nation's most recognizable writers into Papa the Pitchman.

###

Issue number three of the Hawaiian literary journal vice-versa is the Baseball Issue and includes an interview with Tony Gwynn about the art of hitting and the art of writing about hitting.